


A Little More Lois Lane

by stellatundra



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-11-01 23:01:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17876414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellatundra/pseuds/stellatundra
Summary: For a top investigative reporter, Enjolras is surprisingly oblivious. In the two years they’ve worked together, he has failed to notice that Grantaire is Metropole’s resident superhero, despite the remarkable coincidence rate between his disappearances and R’s appearances. Enjolras also seems to have no idea that Grantaire is hopelessly in love with him, something which everybody but Enjolras appears to have worked out.





	A Little More Lois Lane

**Author's Note:**

> This is 1% inspiration, 99% making it up as I went along and 100% silly.

Grantaire uses only the tiniest bit of super speed as he skids in late to work (again), almost tripping over a nervous looking kid loitering on the front steps of The Daily ABC. There had been a mugging downtown and they’d put up a bit of a fight, but he’d got them all tied up eventually. 

“Grantaire,” Enjolras hisses as he meets him in the doorway of the office. Grantaire hadn’t even known you could hiss words without s sounds before he’d met Enjolras. “You’re late.”

“I got, uh, held up,” Grantaire says, because the quippy punning thing is the one bit of superheroing he actually excels at. “What’s up?”

“We got a tip-off about the environmental practices going on at the Jondrette factory, we need to go and check it out. Also, have you even heard the news today? The government announced more measures to combat…” Grantaire tunes out what promises to be a prolonged rant and just looks at him; Enjolras bathed in a halo of righteous fury is a thing to behold.

If there was any sense or justice in this shoddy, screwed up universe, Enjolras would have been the one with superpowers. He’s the one with poster-boy looks, he’s the one with the ideals, the drive to make the world a better place. Grantaire had just happened to stumble into the wrong bar at the wrong time and accidentally imbibe some kind of alien goop and now he’s the one with the great power and the great responsibility and the great pain in the ass that makes him late for work on a regular basis. 

“And,” Enjolras continues, “the new intern starts today and you were supposed to be here to welcome…”

“Um, hi,” Grantaire looks round to see the freckle faced kid he’d almost tripped over on his way in standing behind him. “I’m, um, Marius. I’m the new intern.”

“Hello,” Grantaire says smoothly, offering his hand. “Welcome to The Daily ABC.” He turns to Enjolras. “Consider the intern welcomed,” he says smugly. Enjolras scowls. “Marius, meet Enjolras, star reporter of the ABC. A little less Joseph Pulitzer, a little more Lois Lane, if you ask me.” Enjolras scowls some more.

“Nobody did ask you. Come on,” he says, tying his scarf into a knot, “let’s go.”

“Oh wow, are we off out already?” says Marius. “Cool, I can’t wait to see what real investigative journalism looks like in action. Getting out there, the pursuit of justice...”

Grantaire stares at him, trying to work out whether he can possibly be saying those words with a complete absence of irony. Enjolras, however, just nods seriously, like this is a reasonable view to express. Until Marius continues. “In some ways, it’s almost like being R, you know.” Enjolras stops dead still.

“Are you seriously comparing our serious, evidence based, legal –” Grantaire interrupts him with a cough; Enjolras frowns and continues, “…work, with that, that… vigilante?”

“You… you don’t like R?” Marius says, eyes wide in wonder. Welcome to my life, Grantaire wants to say. I fight crime for no reward but Enjolras’s disdain. “I heard on the radio he stopped a mugging this morning. Two criminals were found tied up in an alleyway. A letter R was spray-painted next to them.”

“Exactly my point! Who decides that they are criminals? R! What right does he have to tie them up without due process of law? Do we not have the right to walk our streets in freedom?”

“The freedom to be mugged, you mean,” Grantaire says, rolling his eyes. “You’re starting to sound like Javert.” Enjolras pulls a face. Seriously, Enjolras is the only person he has ever met who rails against the government and the forces of the law, criminal activity and superheroes with equal fervour. Fortunately, Marius takes up the baton as they head down to Enjolras’s car, listing some of Grantaire’s more undeniably heroic deeds in his defence. He doesn’t let it go to his head. Much. 

*

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Grantaire says as they pull up to Jondrette Inc. It had been less than two years since Enjolras had successfully run an expose on the Thenardiers for an illegal employment scandal which had resulted in hefty fines. It had also resulted in Enjolras being thrown out of a window and R having to rescue him from certain death for the first (but by no means the last) time. 

“It’ll be fine. This is entirely upfront. I’m just going to ask for an interview.”

“Right. And when they inevitably say no and ask you to leave…?”

“Marius is going to charm the receptionist while I sneak in to look at their files.”

Grantaire looks dubiously at Marius. He doesn’t seem the most likely candidate for a charm-offensive. But he looks so excited to be asked that Grantaire doesn’t have the heart to express his doubts aloud. 

“Whatever you say, Apollo.” Enjolras frowns at the nickname. 

Surprisingly, Marius charming the receptionist actually works. Her name is Eponine and she seems bafflingly charmed by Marius’s fumbling attempts at flirting, even offering to fetch some information for them that Enjolras had been trying and failing for months to get through freedom of information requests. 

Unsurprisingly, Enjolras gets into trouble. 

Grantaire starts to get agitated when Enjolras doesn’t return after half an hour. Eponine is busy looking something up on a computer. 

“Look, Marius, I’ve just got to, uh, make a phone call.”

“Sure, go ahead,” Marius says brightly. Grantaire curses silently. The advent of mobile phones has been a bane in the lives of superheroes everywhere. No excuse to nip out, no handy booth to change in. Superman never had to deal with this shit. 

“It’s kind of personal. I’ll just, uh, nip outside.” 

He ends up changing in a bush, which isn’t the worst place he’s ever had to change. There’s a certain level of cool about ripping your shirt off in a phone booth that you just don’t achieve from emerging from a public toilet with your underwear on the outside.

Not that his suit is like that. It’s more of a black onesie with a variety of belts and buckles for various gadgets. Not that he needs gadgets per se, he has got actual powers; but powers can’t do everything. Sometimes it’s easier to have a tool for breaking a lock than waiting for it to melt from laser vision. Plus there’s a handy hip-flask and a mobile phone holder. Jehan had designed it for him. Jehan is one of his best friends, one of the first people he’d saved (back before he’d had a proper suit, when he’d just been getting used to the whole super power thing), and one of the only people who knows about his secret identity. The only point about which they’d disagreed was the cape Jehan had wanted to add. Jehan is a cape person, Grantaire really isn’t. 

Grantaire focuses his laser vision on the building, trying to see through. It’s not X-ray vision exactly, it’s more of a heat-and-light thing. There are heat signatures everywhere, impossible to tell which is Enjolras. Grantaire begins to climb up the side of the building, trying to attune his hearing to Enjolras’s voice. There. He’d recognise Enjolras’s voice anywhere. He focuses. It would sound calm to a casual listener, but he knows Enjolras, and that’s his ‘calm on the outside, in mortal peril on the inside’ voice. 

Grantaire splinters through the window with a crash. Enjolras is being pinned against the wall by a burly looking man while a smaller, sharp-faced one holds a knife to his throat. Grantaire knocks the knife out of his hand with a roundhouse kick, pins the smaller guy’s arm behind his back and knocks him unconscious with a well-placed headbutt. He then incapacitates the larger man with a blow to the kneecaps, pulls a sack over his head and ties it quickly with a piece of discarded rope. 

“Looks like you’ve got the sack,” he quips, which admittedly isn’t his finest work, but he doesn’t think it’s bad for the spur of the moment. He turns to Enjolras with a grin. He rolls his eyes.

“Idiot,” Enjolras says, jabbing R in the chest with one finger.

“I think you mispronounced ‘thank you’.”

“I had them then, they were just about to talk!”

“I hate to say it, but that’s really not what it looked like.”

“Of course it’s not what it looked like, I had to let them think they were winning!” Enjolras throws up his hands in exasperation. 

“So you had a cunning plan for overpowering two men, one of whom had a knife at your throat, with no weapons, superpowers or backup.” Grantaire folds his arms across his chest.

“I was recording,” Enjolras says stubbornly, instead of answering the question.

“Enjolras, exposing some bad environmental practices isn’t worth your life!” Grantaire explodes. 

“You… how do you know that’s what I’m doing?” Enjolras asks, wrinkling his nose.

“I… uh… I’ve been investigating too! Why else do you think I’m here, just to save your ass?”

“I…”

“Look, I’ve got some information you can use. I’ll get it to you. Just… take care.”

“Oh. OK. I will. Thank you.” Enjolras seems at a loss for words for once. 

“There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” Grantaire winks. He’s not sure it really works, since he’s wearing a mask. “Come on.” He takes a step closer to Enjolras and puts one arm around him.

“Wh-what are you doing?” Enjolras’s cheeks seem a little pink. Grantaire scoops him up into his arms.

“How were you planning on getting out of here?” Grantaire asks, heading for the window. “We’re on the sixth floor.” Enjolras’s hair is tickling his chin, the only part of him not covered by reinforced, fire-proof breathable material (not latex, after that unfortunate incident when he’d rescued someone with an allergy). He can smell Enjolras’s cologne. Grantaire tries very hard not to let it go to his head, or, er, anywhere else. It would be very unfortunate to get an erection while wearing tights. 

They float down gracefully and land right next to an awed looking Marius, who is standing outside snapping pictures of them on his phone. Grantaire clears his throat as Enjolras disentangles his arms from around his neck. 

“Thank you,” Enjolras says again, a little reluctantly, not meeting his eyes.

“You’re welcome, citizen,” Grantaire says in his best R voice, and flies off into the bushes, scrambling around for his clothes. 

“Wow, was that really R, did he really rescue you? That’s amazing…” Marius is saying.

“Where’s Grantaire?” Enjolras asks.

“He got a phone call,” Marius says. “I’m, um, not sure where he is now, actually.”

“I’m here,” Grantaire says, a little out of breath as he emerges from the bushes. “What did I miss?”

*

For someone whose literal day job it is to find out hidden truths, make connections and investigate circumstances, Enjolras is surprisingly oblivious. In the nearly two years they have worked together at The Daily ABC, Enjolras has failed to notice that Grantaire is Metropole’s resident superhero, despite the remarkable coincidence rate between his disappearances and R’s appearances. To be fair, he has worked quite hard at keeping that a secret; nobody else seems to have figured it out either. The fake glasses seem to help. 

Enjolras also seems to have no idea that Grantaire is hopelessly in love with him, something which everybody but Enjolras appears to have worked out. 

He sneaks back into the factory under cover of darkness, looking for anything that might be of use to Enjolras in his quest to uncover cover-ups, right injustices and everything else. He doesn’t have time to read it all, but there must be something in the company accounts and records that they can use. Of course, all this is highly illegal, but somehow Enjolras seems able to square that with his otherwise upright morals. It’s just R operating outside the law he seems to have a problem with. Perhaps because there’s less uncovering of corporate scandal and more punching people in the face and making puns about it. 

On the way home there’s an accident on the Metro and R spends several hours helping to rescue injured passengers. He can’t save all of them, some of the ones he does save are missing limbs already. All in all, it’s not a pleasant business and he needs a drink before going home for a couple of hours of sleep.

He’s exhausted when he gets to the Daily ABC offices the next morning, unshaven and bleary eyed, and throws the dossier of stolen information into the intra-office mail cart, knowing it will make its way to Enjolras. The accident is the big news of the day, of course, with reporters fielding phone calls and their editor, Combeferre, calmly issuing orders and people yelling.

“You look like shit,” Enjolras tells him when he walks into his office. 

“Thank you, my dear Apollo, you look like fresh morning daisies as always,” Grantaire replies sweetly, although he hardly has the energy even to wind up Enjolras, which is usually his pastime of choice. 

“Were you out drinking?”

“I had a couple of drinks.” Grantaire pushes his glasses further up his nose. Cultivating a reputation as a lazy drunk might be the perfect cover, but it’s still a little galling to be lectured about it when he’s had to put his lazy drunk days behind him in order to save the city on a regular basis. 

Marius brings the mail and Grantaire at least gets to see the way Enjolras’s face lights up when he opens the packet from R. 

“This is… wow, we can really use this stuff. Marius, I want you cross-checking these permit records with city hall. Grantaire, we’re going to go through these with a fine-tooth comb.” He puts a large pile of papers in front of him. “We’re not leaving this room until they’re done.” Grantaire groans, not because it’s a hardship being stuck in a small room with Enjolras (although in some ways it kind of is), but because if Enjolras is there he’s going to have to pretend to read through them at a regular speed, no powers involved.

In the end, he uses just a little bit of super speed when Enjolras isn’t looking, and Enjolras lets him out to get them both lunch from the deli around the corner. He foils an armed robbery and rescues a cat from a tree on his way back so it’s not really his fault he took so long or that all the tuna mayo is squeezing out of Enjolras’s baguette. 

Marius is back at three, the records clutched in his hand and a notably dazed expression on his face. Which, considering his regular facial expression is a little dazed anyway, is somewhat worrying. Grantaire wonders whether he’s sustained a blow to the head. Enjolras holds his hand out for the records, barely looking up.

“How did it go?”

“Incredible,” Marius says dreamily. “There was the most wonderful girl at the Mayor’s office. She said she’d get you an interview with the Mayor, if you like. Plus she’s looking into where the permits were issued from for us.”

Grantaire stares at him, and even Enjolras looks up, eyebrows raised in surprise. Marius has only been working here for 48 hours and he’s already got two different women falling over themselves to get him information it would have taken weeks of negotiation for them to get themselves. Perhaps he has superpowers too. Grantaire almost wants to ask him. 

*

On Friday night there is a party at Courfeyrac’s. Marius, as well as being their new intern, is apparently also Courfeyrac’s new flatmate, and this necessitates a party. Not that Courfeyrac ever needs much of an excuse for a party. Enjolras is there, in jeans, which surprises him. He smiles at Grantaire and lifts his glass in his direction when he makes his way into Courfeyrac’s kitchen, late as usual (stopping an ungrateful mobile-using guy from being run over, saving a puppy from drowning). 

“So apparently,” Courfeyrac is saying, well on his way to drunk already (Grantaire envies him), “not only has Marius met the most amazing girl at the Mayor’s office and got her number, but Enjolras has developed a bit of a crush.”

“It’s not a crush,” Enjolras insists, scowling. Grantaire feels his stomach lurch. Two years of being in desperately unrequited love with Enjolras has been mostly bearable because Enjolras doesn’t seem to have time for dating or romance or anything like that at all. Being in desperately unrequited love with Enjolras while he crushes on someone else sounds like a whole new world of awkward and painful. 

“Enjolras has a crush on the girl from the Mayor’s office as well?”

“It’s not a crush,” Enjolras repeats.

“No, no, not on her, on R,” Courfeyrac announces triumphantly.

“What?” Grantaire says, vocabulary having deserted him.

“It’s not a crush,” Enjolras says for the third time. Courfeyrac mutters something about protesting too much. “I was just saying how he went back to get the files we needed from Jondrette Inc because he cares about this kind of thing too. And the metro disaster, without him there…”

“Well, you’ve certainly changed your tune,” Grantaire bites. He tries to wash down some of the bitterness in his voice by taking a large swallow of whatever drink is closest to hand. Some part of his brain is telling him that this ought to be a good thing. Enjolras likes R. Grantaire is R. But somehow the message isn’t getting through. Enjolras only likes R for the things he does, not the person he is, just like everyone else who can’t see past the mask. “That’s all very admirable, but I think you ought to think it through. After all, he could be unnaturally ugly behind the mask.”

“That isn’t important,” Enjolras protests.

“No, of course not, since you don’t have a crush,” Grantaire says, eyes locked with Enjolras. He can hear a slightly sneering note in his own voice and is embarrassed for himself. Enjolras has a slight flush to his cheeks, whether from the drink or the topic of conversation. Everyone else has gone very quiet and Grantaire hates the thought that they all know exactly who he has a crush on and are pitying him for it. “So, Marius,” he says, breaking eye contact and putting on a show of unconcern, “tell us more about this woman from the Mayor’s office.”

“Well, her name is Cosette, she’s so beautiful and kind, I could barely speak when she looked at me but…”

Courfeyrac chokes on his drink, interrupting him.

“Cosette as in the Mayor’s daughter?!”

This new information sends Marius into a state of panic and Courfeyrac into peals of hysterics, and the topic of any crush Enjolras may or may not have on R is dropped. 

*

Their first line of enquiry leads them to a warehouse downtown. Of course it’s locked, and there is no possible way of getting inside without resorting to lock-breaking or super powers. Grantaire suggests they get Marius to ask the Jondrette girl for more information. Enjolras agrees to leave it, and they spend the rest of the day cross checking the Thenardiers’ permit records with the information Marius had obtained from Cosette at the Mayor’s office. 

That night, Grantaire returns to the warehouse and is not at all surprised to see Enjolras attempting to sneak in. 

“You know, I can’t say I approve of this vigilante business,” he drawls, hanging upside down from a girder, rewarded when Enjolras jumps and drops his torch. “I mean, aren’t there serious, evidence-based legal channels for finding information?”

“Not when it has been illegally covered-up,” Enjolras retorts. Even in the dark, Grantaire can see a flush staining his cheeks. “There’s something going on at that factory, something that could be dangerous. If they are disposing of hazardous waste unsafely it could get into the water supply.”

“Well,” Grantaire says, tumbling down to land gracefully in front of him, “if you must go creeping about in the dead of night, you could at least dress the part.” Grantaire gestures first to his own black suit and then to Enjolras’s red hoodie. “Although it wouldn’t do to cover up that gorgeous face under a mask.” 

Enjolras pulls his hoodie closer around him, looking suddenly self-conscious, but he follows Grantaire when he turns and creeps along the warehouse floor. There are barrels and barrels of something marked with green Xs. Neither of them dares to touch it but Grantaire uses his laser vision to try to see inside. It glows hotter than it should, and whatever the substance, it isn’t anything good. 

“We should photograph this,” Enjolras says, fumbling with his phone. It’s not exactly evidence of wrong-doing but it’s something, a piece of the puzzle. At the flash of the camera, however, a siren sounds. 

“Run,” Grantaire says, grabbing Enjolras’s hand and pulling him back towards the entrance, to the window they’d climbed through. Too late, there are security guards and dogs between them and their way out. “Hold on,” he says, and leaps, catching on to a girder and pulling Enjolras up after him. 

“What..?” Enjolras begins, but Grantaire shushes him. He scans the building, looking for a way out. There’s another window, opposite them, but to get there without being seen will be difficult. He needs a distraction. He pulls the hipflask from its pocket and soaks some of the alcohol onto a tissue, ignoring Enjolras tutting. He throws it with precision accuracy towards the closest guard, while simultaneously using his laser vision to heat it up. The guard yelps when his boot catches fire and immediately starts trying to stamp it out with his other foot.

It’s only a small fire, but enough of a distraction to grab Enjolras, fly to the window and out.

 

They land on the roof of Enjolras’s building. 

“That is exactly what I mean!” Enjolras says, whirling around to face him the second his feet touch the floor. “Criminal damage, common assault, arson! That’s what I mean by vigilantism!”

“Well, I apologise for saving your life again,” Grantaire says.

“That doesn’t even count as saving my life! We were only in that mess because you…”

“Decided to follow you trespassing on private property and make sure you didn’t get yourself killed,” Grantaire finishes for him. 

Enjolras is standing very close to him, breathing hard. It would hardly take much to lean over and seal their lips together. He supposes he must have looked at Enjolras’s lips a second too long, because when his eyes flicker back up, he sees that Enjolras is looking at his lips and then he kisses him, sudden and sweet enough that he almost doesn’t realise it’s happened until it’s over. 

Enjolras looks stunned, like he’s not sure what’s just happened, although if he had to swear to it, Grantaire would swear Enjolras was the one who had kissed him. Then without a word they’re kissing again, and it’s almost, almost everything he’s ever wanted. Except then Enjolras’s hands are on his face, fingers brushing against the edges of R’s mask and he jerks back suddenly.

“Sorry, got to fly,” he says croakily and pushes off into the sky, twisting and tumbling through the air in the hope that the tingling feeling will stop soon.

It doesn’t. 

*

Grantaire flies over to visit Bossuet, known as The Eagle, in the next city along, who is pretty much the only other active Super he knows. Bossuet has two black eyes, a singed eyebrow and one arm in a sling.

“You should see the other guy,” he says when Grantaire raises an eyebrow. “Well, I say guy, it was actually a freight train.”

“You need a better suit,” Grantaire tells him. “Shock absorbent and fire-proof. I’m sure Jehan would make you one, you know, when he gets back from his trip.”

“That would be great,” Bossuet confesses. “Musichetta is fed up of patching my suits up, and Joly is fed up of patching me up.”

“You’re lucky to have them,” Grantaire sighs. “Sometimes I think being a superhero is the loneliest job in the world.”

“Lighthouse keeper?” Bossuet counters and Grantaire snorts.

“Yeah, I know, poor me, superpowers and general adoration is such hard life, I should have brought my own violins.”

“I know what you mean, though,” Bossuet says sympathetically. “I don’t know what I’d do without my guys. What’s got you so down, though. Has something happened?”

“Kind of. I… kissed Enjolras.”

“Enjolras, your secret identity friend slash work mate who you’ve been in love with for years. That Enjolras?”

“Yeah, that’s the one.”

“That’s good… right?”

“I, uh, I was wearing the mask. He likes R, not me. It’s a whole mess.” Grantaire sighs and kicks his heels against the ridge of the twenty-storey building they’re currently sitting on the roof of. 

“Ah.”

“Yeah.” There aren’t really adequate words for the craziness of somehow accidentally becoming your own love rival. 

“You could always just… tell him?”

“Yeah, maybe.” He knows he won’t. How would you even start that conversation?

“Our lives are wild, aren’t they?” Bossuet says, giving his shoulder a squeeze.

“I was going to go with fucked up, but yeah, wild fits too.”

*  
It’s a slow week. They make little progress on the Thenardier story, even though Marius takes Eponine, the Jondrette secretary out to lunch. Of course, that could be because he spends the majority of lunch talking about Cosette Fauchelevent, oblivious to Eponine’s crush on him. He does manage to discover that Eponine is Thenardier’s daughter, which causes Enjolras to re-evaluate the veracity of all information that came from her. 

There are two more armed robberies, enough for the Daily ABC to start describing it as a ‘spate’ and start requesting quotes from both the Mayor, and Javert, the Police Commissioner. Javert is naturally furious that R has caught the criminals rather than his own team. 

Javert had spent years trying to uncover the secret identity of Valjean the Valiant, the superhero who had protected Metropole before R, who was now retired. 

R had met Valjean once, on a rooftop. His suit had fit badly and there had been strands of grey hair escaping from under his mask, but he was still unmistakably the same superhero who’d saved all those people trapped under a building with nothing but his super strength. Valjean had said he was confident the city was in safe hands. Grantaire hadn’t been at all sure of that but having Valjean’s blessing had helped more than he wanted to admit to himself at the time. 

Enjolras is unusually quiet all week. 

Grantaire doesn’t tell him.

 

*

In retrospect, it is the calm before the storm.

Enjolras is kidnapped on a Tuesday afternoon in broad daylight on his way back from buying coffee. 

Grantaire is informed of the fact when Combeferre shows him the note the kidnappers had wanted the Daily ABC to publish. 

“R – we have your boyfriend. Come alone and unarmed to the warehouse by midnight.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Grantaire says, tugging at his hair in frustration. “The paper wouldn’t be published until after midnight; don’t they understand print deadlines at all?”

Combeferre blinks at him. 

“Perhaps they think someone at the paper could get the message to R sooner,” he suggests, deadpan.

“Well, yes, I could… um, I might have R’s… number or… I’ll just… go?”

“Just go,” Combeferre agrees. 

He doesn’t really stop to formulate a plan. He changes quickly (behind the bins) and flies off to the warehouse. 

“Where is he?”

Thenardier laughs and Grantaire wonders whether he should have tried calling his bluff, pretending Enjolras didn’t mean anything to him. He’s good at pretending, but he doesn’t think he would have been able to pretend that. 

Of course, Enjolras isn’t actually there, that would be far too easy. Villains these days have delusions of grandeur, and Thenardier is only too delighted to taunt him, knowing R won’t kill him before he reveals where Enjolras is. In the end he gives him an ultimatum: save Enjolras or save the city. Several hundred barrels of hazardous waste ready to tip into the water supply. 

He really, really wants to save Enjolras. But he can imagine the look on Enjolras face if he doesn’t save the city. As he flies to the site of the proposed waste dump, he thinks. There must be a loophole somewhere, a way to do both. He racks his brains for a solution. If only he was better, faster, stronger. Maybe he can stop the toxic waste dump, save the city and still have time to save Enjolras. What is Thenardier getting out of this, besides being a pain in Grantaire’s ass? There must be more to it. This is a distraction, of course. Something to keep him busy. There’s something more, something he’s missing.

“R.”

He knows the voice, although he’s only really heard it once before. 

“Valjean?” 

“I’m sorry, I can’t let you do this.”

“What do you mean? He’s going to poison the city! People could die.”

Valjean hangs his head, but he doesn’t move. R tries to shove past him, but Valjean is too strong. Super strength was always his best-known power. 

“They won’t die. They’ll become super. Like us.”

“He can’t know that will work!” And if it does work… everyone in Metropole a super. There’s an equality to that he thinks Enjolras would admire. And yet… it’s not something he would have chosen, being super. For the citizens to have this thrust upon them seems unjust. “Thenardier shouldn’t get to make that decision. “

“And should you get to make the decision to deny them?”

“Yes,” he says, his voice wavering. “Everyone should get to make their own choice.”

“Sometimes we don’t have a choice,” Valjean says, voice heavy with sadness. 

“He’s taken someone,” Grantaire deduces. “Someone you love.”

Valjean looks up, and nods. 

“My daughter. He blackmailed me, to start with, to get the permits. He knew my identity. But when I told him I couldn’t help anymore... he took her.”

“He’s taken someone I love too. But he told me he was going to destroy the city. He’s playing us, Valjean. He wants us to fight each other. Destroy each other. But we can work together, we can save them both.”

Valjean looks like he wants to believe him. Grantaire makes a decision. 

“I’m going to save them. You stay here. If you’re right, and this is super-power-inducing alien whatever, then it’s on your conscience if you don’t stop it. If you’re wrong, and people die… well, I guess it’s on your conscience either way. How much do you trust Thenardier?”

“Not as far as I could throw him,” Valjean scoffs. “But Co- my daughter…”

“I’ll save her. I promise.” Grantaire really, really hopes he’s going to be able to keep that promise. 

*

There are guns trained on him from the second he flies through the factory window. Jehan assures him the suit is bullet-proof, but he’d really rather not have to test that out right now. Four against one. Well, he’s beaten worse odds before. It’s all pow, slam, thwack, flying kicks and punches that feel like they should have comic book subtitles. Two of them down and the third gets him with a well-timed blow to the stomach. He knows he’ll heal quickly but it still bloody hurts. He goes for the ankles, tripping the guy so that his head hits the floor with a satisfying thump. But he’s taken his eye off the fourth man and suddenly there’s the cold metal of a gun barrel against his jaw.

A shot rings out and it takes him a second to work out he hasn’t been hit. The man who’d been aiming at him is slumped on the floor by his feet and behind him is Eponine, holding a smoking gun. 

Grantaire staggers to his feet.

“Thanks.”

She shrugs and reloads the gun. 

“He had it coming. My dad’s gone beyond nasty and illegal to properly batshit insane, so someone’s got to stop him, and I figure you’re the best shot. Follow me, I’ll take you to them.” 

Grantaire follows. Eponine leads him to a window, through which he can see the room below. Thenardier is there with three more goons. Two figures are chained up, dangling over a vat of some kind. Grantaire supposes he should be grateful that Thenardier has gone full comic book crazy, because otherwise he might have just shot Enjolras hours ago. At least his grandstanding gives Grantaire a fighting chance. The chained figures spin, and he can see that Enjolras is gagged – he feels a rush of fondness at the idea that Enjolras has annoyed his captors by talking too much. There’s a dark bruise blooming on his cheek and a crust of dried blood; Grantaire vows that Thenardier will pay for that. 

“I’ll create a distraction,” Eponine tells him, voice low, “you fly up and get them out of here.”

“Don’t put yourself in danger,” Grantaire tells her, but she scoffs. 

“I’ll be alright. Make sure you get her out safely. Marius will be sad if you don’t.”

It’s a good distraction. Eponine screams so loud he thinks her lungs might give out; Thenardier shouts and two of the goons run out of the room in the direction she’s pointing. In all of the chaos, nobody seems to notice Grantaire flying up to where Enjolras and Cosette are chained. He inspects the chains, not daring to meet Enjolras’s eyes; he can’t afford to get lost in them for even a second. The balance is key – if he frees one of them, the other will fall. Another of Thenardier’s nasty little games. The only thing for it is to unhook the whole mechanism and transfer the weight to his shoulders. This he manages but not without some strain; Cosette and Enjolras are both slight but it’s still hard to fly with the two of them and the weight of the chain across his back. It’s not quiet, either, and soon Thenardier notices what’s going on. Shots are fired but he can’t tell from where; he flies with all his might to get to safety, hoping neither of them have been hit by any stray bullets. 

“Close your eyes,” he tells them, and powers through a skylight, glass splintering around them. Safe on the roof, he stops, panting and begins to loosen the chains. His eyes meet Enjolras’s at last, full of fire. Hands shaking, he pulls the makeshift gag away from his mouth.

“You have to stop him,” Enjolras says, wasting no time. 

“I have to get you to safety first,” Grantaire says firmly.

“No! We’ll be safe here. He told us what he’s planning. There was a whole monologue. You have to bring him to justice.” There are sirens outside. Maybe, just maybe, time and firepower are on his side. Grantaire looks at Cosette. He’d promised to save her. She nods at him. Grantaire looks back at Enjolras.

“R, please.”

“Anything for you Apollo,” he says, and doesn’t notice how still Enjolras goes all of a sudden. He flies back down into the factory and tackles Thenardier. He’s stronger than he looks, or he really has found a way to get himself superpowers. The fight is harder than he’d imagined it would be, not least because Grantaire is trying not to knock into the vat of whatever-the-hell-it-is, while Thenardier seems to have no such compunction. 

At last, though, he prevails, winding Thenardier in some of the same chains that he’d used to tie up Enjolras and Cosette, which appeals to Grantaire’s sense of irony. Grantaire picks him up by the end of the chain, careful to keep clear of Thenardier’s hands or teeth or anything else, and flies down to deposit him neatly at the feet of Police Commissioner Javert, who goggles at them as if unsure who to arrest.

“One for the chain gang, Commissioner,” Grantaire says with a jaunty salute, and flies back to the roof. Minutes later he’s flying down with Cosette in his arms, just as Valjean, his suit burned in patches and his mask half torn off, appears. 

“It’s done,” he tells Grantaire. “Thank you.” Then he is embracing his daughter as camera flashes go off all around them and the whispers, Valjean, the Mayor, Valjean, The Mayor, echo all around. Marius fights his way through the crowd and is somehow enveloped into what is becoming a group hug. Grantaire allows himself one look at Javert’s face, seemingly unable to make up its mind whether it is horrified or triumphant, finally settling on a twisted expression half way between the two, before taking off for the roof once more. 

“So, you want to join the media circus down there, or shall I fly you straight home?” Grantaire asks. Enjolras shakes his head. 

“The Daily ABC,” he says.

“You’re not serious? You know, if you look up workaholic in the dictionary, there’s a picture of your face. You’ve just been kidnapped, you’re allowed to take a break.”

“Please,” is all Enjolras says, and if he doesn’t know by now that Grantaire can’t say no to him, then he really ought to.

They don’t speak while flying, the rush of wind is too loud. The thumping of his heart feels too loud to Grantaire too. He sets Enjolras down on the steps of the Daily ABC. It feels like there should be more to say - after all, he’s just saved Enjolras’s life - but then again, this is, what, the ninth, maybe tenth time. Perhaps things like that lose their charm. It feels like the first time he’d been really afraid for him, though, and he doesn’t know how to begin to express that. For a superhero, Grantaire suspects himself of being a bit of a coward. 

Enjolras hesitates, like he’s not sure what to say either. Then, all in a rush, he leans in and kisses Grantaire, half on the cheek, half on the corner of his mouth. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says hurriedly, and rushes inside. 

*  
Grantaire reads the Daily ABC on the metro on the way into work the following morning. The late edition has the story of Thenardier’s arrest and the reveal of Mayor Fauchelevent as the retired superhero Valjean all over the front page. The story continues on pages two, three, four and five, including an in-depth analysis of Thenardier’s alleged misdeeds and a biography of the Mayor. Grantaire recognises Enjolras’s style in a lot of it. There’s so much more of the story to tell, this is going to keep them busy for weeks. 

He runs into Marius on the steps, holding a cardboard tray of coffee cups. He takes one and almost spits it out after the first swig.

“What is in this, rocket fuel?”

“Ah, that must be Enjolras’s. He asked for a triple-shot. He’s been up all night, you know.”

“I had thought that might be the case,” Grantaire says, swapping coffee cups and sipping his own cappuccino instead. 

“Were you there? Did you get any good pics? Did you see Cosette? Isn’t she lovely? And her dad, the Mayor, I couldn’t believe it! You know he actually rescued me when I was younger, saved my life, you know. I heard Javert wants to prosecute him, but he’s a bit busy dealing with Thenardier first, Cosette had to give a witness statement…”

Grantaire’s mind is stuck on the second question. He hadn’t taken any good pictures. In fact, he can’t remember the last time he took any good pictures, which is, after all, technically his job. It’s a wonder Combeferre hasn’t fired him. But then he thinks back to his last conversation with Combeferre and wonders. Perhaps he hasn’t been quite as discreet as he’d thought. 

Enjolras’s tired eyes light up as the coffee is put in front of him. Only after he’s had a long draught of it does he look up and realise it is Grantaire sitting opposite him. Grantaire can’t decide whether he most wants to pull Enjolras into his arms and hug him or send him home to bed to rest under a pile of the fluffiest blankets. Or both at once. He settles for reaching across and placing one hand on Enjolras’s wrist, touching him just to reassure himself he’s alive and well.

“Are you okay?” he asks seriously. “That must have been quite an ordeal.”

“I’m fine.” Enjolras frowns at him but doesn’t pull his arm away. “Combeferre’s sending me home anyway.” He nods at the newspaper in Grantaire’s hand. “You read it then?”

“Yeah. Sterling work, top notch journalism.” Grantaire grins. Enjolras rolls his eyes.

“All of it?” he persists. Grantaire starts to worry. He unfurls the paper and flicks through, reading at super speed. Then he spots it: the names of the contributing reporters. 

“You put my name on it. This is your article, Enjolras.”

“Well, I thought your contribution deserved to be recognised,” Enjolras says carefully. 

“Really, I didn’t do much,” Grantaire scoffs. “Marius probably helped more. But thank you. It means a lot to me.” Grantaire coughs, embarrassed. “When we win the Pulitzer, you can do the acceptance speech.”

“I thought I was ‘a little less Joseph Pulitzer, a little more Lois Lane’,” Enjolras says with a tight laugh. “I didn’t get it at the time.” He gives Grantaire a serious, searching look. “I do now.”

“Now you’ve been tied up and rescued by a superhero ten times, you mean. Is ten the magic number?”

“I’m not going to tell anyone, you know.”

“What?” Grantaire feels himself go very still. “Tell anyone what? I don’t know what you mean.”

Enjolras sighs and pushes his chair back. 

“Have dinner with me tonight.”

“What?” Grantaire blinks. He can’t keep up with this conversation. 

“Have dinner with me tonight,” Enjolras repeats. Grantaire nods. There’s a chance he’s still asleep and dreaming.

“Uh, okay.”

Enjolras crosses over to where Grantaire is sitting and slides one hand through his hair. He leans in close and Grantaire finds he almost can’t breathe. Enjolras kisses him, warm and soft but brief, like the promise of something more. Then he pulls away just far enough to speak.

“For the record,” Enjolras says, lips against his ear, “I like you better without the mask.”


End file.
